On Society and Culture in America.

In this article the author comments on the book "On the Making of Americans: Essays in Honor of David Riesman," edited by Herbert J. Gans, Nathan Glazer, Joseph R. Gusfield, and Christopher Jencks. David Riesman's contributions as a scholar-teacher belong to a noble tradition in sociology: the synthesis of humanistic and scientific learning. In the U.S., works by scholars have highlighted this tradition, and today sociology's two faces appear in the writings of both older and younger scholars of distinction. Except for Martin Myerson's foreword and a delightful epilogue by Everett Hughes, only one essay in this collection examines Riesman's work. The contributors chose subjects from their current studies, leaving the task of assessment for another day. This editorial strategy has produced a potpourri: the fourteen papers vary greatly in topic and topicality, sociological sophistication, and intellectual style. The first, longest, and, in the author's view, finest essay is Joseph Featherstone's "John Dewey and David Riesman." Its central theme is the tension between the "long revolution" and the "lost community" -- between the modem and the countermodern, individuality and communality, reason and feeling.